a novice, and left upon her pillow a few
shillings, I do think and hope that her spirits were a little brighter
than before--and there was need, for there were faint hopes of her
descending that ladder more, save for her "long home."

I once more directed my steps to the public-house for my horse, whose
head I now turned towards a farm-house where I had written to procure
apartments. I had proceeded but a short distance, when he sunk up to
the girths in a small bog, but contrived to scramble out so soon as I
had dismounted. I knew beforehand, that my future residence was
inaccessible for any description of carriage, but as I was little
likely to be encumbered in this way, it was a matter of no
consideration, but it certainly annoyed me to find that every now and
then I was liable to get my sermon moistened in a quagmire.

In the midst, then, of these bogs was my solitary abode, which enjoyed
the somewhat singular appellation of Pinslow. This, I fancy, from its
situation among the surrounding morasses, to have been a corruption of
"Peninsula," as it had but one line of access.

I was destined to be the first of my profession that ever resided in
the parish. The salary being very minute, with no parsonage-house,
hitherto each clergyman, save the one of the neighbouring parish, had
conscientiously declined the appointment.

On reaching my house, I found it to be rurally situated in the centre
of its straw-yard, but altogether well suited to my wants. There was a
very good one-stalled stable, or loose box, and as, on rainy days, I
would throw off my reading-coat, and rub down my horse for an hour,
this was an object of some importance. I was equally fortunate with
regard to my sitting-room, for, without rising, I could reach anything
I wished for, from one end of it to the other. A second room was
sufficiently spacious to hold the bed.

Towards the close of the evening, laying aside etiquette, as Crusoe
would in his solitary isle, I went out in order to visit a curate who
had lately taken the parish bordering on my own, and who, like myself,
had just entered on his noviciate. Here I found Seymour, a fellow
Etonian and contemporary.

Though we had never before been intimate, how happy was I to meet with
him. For years had I been in the habit of seeing him every day, when
all was happiness, and now to be with him again, though my prospects
were as gloomy as the barren moors around us! I felt how different was
my regard